Friday, October 19, 2012

Meet the dogs of the Jericho Railyard! there is Dirt Bag the dirty dog, Francis the saddest dog of all, the sexy Sabrina, Puddin' and the brains and leader of the group, Ripper! Follow their adventures in friendship as they prank the property manager, Ol Manager McDougal, evade the terrifying Dog Catcher and tangle with college-dropout meth heads. So pass the weed, sink your teeth into a juicy pigeon leg, relax and enjoy the show!!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Santiago Garcia over at his blog Mandorla gives a good survey review of my books from a European perspective of the current American underground comic book movement. Check it out here.

Here's a particularly choice passage (using Google Translator from Spanish) comparing my work to Gilbert Hernandez, whom I consider a hero and who I'm going to try to emulate as far as book production goes (I want to put out a graphic novel a year the same way Béto does it) and Frank Miller and Fletcher Hanks:

But of course, if Marra was interesting conceptual grounds alone, it would not be as great as is. His comics are full of originality and ideas, and are devilishly entertaining read. As entertaining to read as it should be any comic, but especially commercial comics. Its formula of exploitation with breeching is what Gilbert Hernandez brings more than a decade vacuuming without even remotely close to the success that gets Marra in this handful of comics. Reading Night Business one can even reecontrarse with Frank Miller as an icon of the eighties, as a child of the age of the heaters, and realize that while we wanted to ignore it for thirty years, the soundtrack of Daredevil and Elektra was a muscular sax touched by a bodybuilder blurred by smoke in the distance. Yes, exactly what Lost Boys. And the feat of being so vicious and yet maintain a comic naivete of Fletcher Hanks, is that how it is achieved? With a singular talent only.

There's a very good, lengthy analysis and review from Alec Berry and Shawn Starr of my most recent comic book LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! as well as my other comic book work over at the blog alec reads comics, originally posted to Spandexless.com. Check out the full post here. They get into some interesting discussions about Spiegelman Intellectualism in comics as a result from Kurtzman and EC.

I would place myself in that camp of the faithful. Like most of the industry, I too was unaware of Marra’s comics up until this year, but now after having spent time with them, I find his attitude and passion for creating engrossing, and I feel his comics represent a long forgotten aspect of the medium. Representing, of course, for the betterment of comics.Marra’s books, while lewd, grotesque and absurd, are keeping this funny book thing on the ground, balancing out the high reaching works of Craig Thompson, or whatever other clone there may be, celebrating some of the roots associated with comics while simply presenting an artist who doesn’t really give a fuck what you think. Marra’s making the shit he wants to see, and from this I feel it’s appropriate we discuss Marra’s work after our previous discussion which pertained to Rob Liefeld. Because Marra, like Liefeld, celebrates the trash entertainment value found in comics, but does so with an energy and charm that cannot be overridden. Yet, as an added bonus, Marra’s comics juxtapose the trash subject matter by presenting astounding craft and draftsmanship, making his books into these bombastic scraps slammed together with staples.

Frédéric Fleury curated a recent, 04, issue of the art book series "Curated by" which was screenprinted by Bongout. Art by CF, Antoine Marquis, myself and Johnny Ryan appear in the issue. I believe yoiu can order a copy here.

Ben Marra, with the possible exception of Michael Deforge, is the best artist in alt-comics at the moment.

DeForge and I hung out in Toronto this past weekend at TCAF. We're bros. Here is some more insight into the publication from the review:

The thinness of newsprint allows images to be superimposed. Visuals on
the back of a page become visible on the front of a page, and vice
versa. This layering effect adds background detail to the image being
viewed, pocking wholes in the illustrations’ perceived perfection as
lines mesh, figures distort and characters begin to move. This technique
is best used on the cover page where Bateman stands smirking at the
reader, wearing a fitted suite with perfectly kept hair, while holding a
bloody knife in front of an apartment complex. The cleanness that
Bateman exudes is shattered as the image on the back of the page begins
to bleed onto the cover, adding splashes of blood across Bateman’s face
and the apartment complex he’s exiting, creating the image of a messy
and disoriented killer. Adding these details directly to the primary
image would disrupt the “cleanness” of the page and remove Bateman’s
perceived control over the book, but by using the paper’s thinness to
creates ghost images, Marra’s able to create a layered effect that gives
the reader a glimpse into Bateman’s psyche and his loss of control.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

It’s all deeply ugly and silly and reprehensible and preposterous. It’s
also undeniably beautiful, featuring Marra’s best use of blacks to date —
I’m having a hard time tearing myself away from looking at the shadows
on Johnny’s cheeks and chest or Chase’s back and collarbones long enough
to write this post — and paced with precisely the same manipulative
expertise as the genre trash it’s pastiching.

It seems unlikely that anyone would have guessed the missing element
Benjamin Marra needed to deliver his first bona fide masterpiece was a
dose of realism, but then again he does have a way of confounding
expectations. After all, it was always a long shot that the most
consistently excellent alternative cartoonist of the post-Kramers Ergot generation would be a purveyor of straight-ahead action serials whose style springs from Paul Gulacy and Todd McFarlane.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Floating World has teamed with Traditional Comics to reprint Benjamin Marra’s sold out Elf Booklet series, Drawings Inspired by the Motion Picture “American Psycho”. The original artwork was rescanned and published as a 32 page broadsheet (15” x 22.75”) newspaper. Three new illustrations and brand new covers were created for this limited edition of 1500 copies.

"Employing Raymond Pettibon’s aesthetics and inspired by the movie “American Psycho”, these 28 illustrations “seem almost mathematically calculated to haunt the eyes they meet: whether it’s the sublimely balanced blacks and whites or the point-of-impact axe to neck shots… the real story here is Marra’s art, which is far and away the best work of his career.” – Matt Seneca, Comics Alliance

Sean T. Collins reviews Shia LeBeouf's comic book work over at The Comics Journal and draws the comparison between LeBeouf's sensibilities and my own:

So too is his footing upon the fine line between irony and sincerity. Cyclical winks at the melodramatic excess of its story yet does so with a straight face, if that makes any sense. Like, say, Benjamin Marra, LaBeouf understands that the ridiculousness of a period-’60s motel sign (“Pink” in Vegas-style quasi-cursive, “MOTEL” in big block letters, palm fronds swaying in the background) or a demonstrative sex scene between a man with an eightball back tattoo and a dreamlike blonde I can’t help but mentally refer to as “his girl” (“Oh fuck…Davey…Your [sic] the best there ever was baby…the best there ever was…Stay with me”) doesn’t cancel out its weirdly primal power.

This is awesome to me. I haven't read LeBeouf's comics yet, but I've seen is acting work and it's tremendous. I've been telling people he's the best actor of his generation for years. The Transformers trilogy he was in are some of my favorite films from recent years.

LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN!, ISSUE 1, is one of Flavorpill's Most Anticipated Comic Releases for April. Check it out here. Here's a portion of what Tucker Stone wrote about the book:

As with his Maureen Dowd comic, Marra provides the pleasures of pure entertainment so directly that it almost fools you into thinking that anyone can do it. They can’t, but that’s the way that genius is supposed to work: you walk away thinking “perfect” is just that easy.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I have an art show opening and comic book release party, for LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN!, ISSUE 1, at the incredible Floating World Comics, in Portland, OR, on Thursday, April 26th, two days before the Stumptown Comics Fest. Portland folks, come on by.

It's 1868, the hostile period succeeding the American Civil War. When the freed slave Lincoln Washington shows up in the small South Carolina town, Butchergrass, with coin and a deed to a plot of land the locals are none too happy about it. In particular, Jasper, the son of a wealthy plantation owner. Lincoln, accused of a crime he didn't commit, must draw on centuries of racial injustice to give him the power to fight his enemies and defend his inherently human right to freedom! Witness the beginning of this Reconstructionist-Era action epic!!